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Tara
Tara is a country at the center of the Southern Continent. Geographically vast and culturally diverse, Tara stretches from the port of Coper in the south on the Gulf of Capulus to the edge of the Zenian highlands to the north, the Feran mountains to the east, and well into the Central Rainforest in the east. While its lingua franca ''and language of government is Tarati, it is only one of six official languages, the others being English, Dore, Nagay, Siowak, and Udthi. History The region of Tartha was initially settled by Eastern Harbic peoples, who are thought to have developed early states around the north Thuvin River starting around 1500 BCE. Very little is known about these peoples, although their language is believed to have been derived from Old Harbic. Several archeological sites have been found, most notably at Lumyi, where a number of ceramics and the remains of stone walls have been found, along with the ruin of an ancient ampitheatre. Some time around or before 1 CE, the region was conquered by the nomadic Azdaq people. Riding on horses, they are believed to have quickly defeated the existing states of the region and established an Azdaq Empire. It is not known whether this empire was established after the fall of the first, northern Azdaq Empire (c. 600 BCE - 300 CE) or whether it was founded by a breakaway group. While the elites of this empire spoke the High Azdaq language, they likely brought with them many slaves and mercenaries that spoke other languages and were settled into the region, potentially including Proto-Ulam and Tar'tah. The most common theory of the Tar'tah is that they were originally Azdaq slaves captured from the Ber or Incean regions to the southeast - this explains their language which is more similar to Incean than to Azdaq or Zenian. Their share of the population gradually increased as the Azdaq state grew less and less centralized. and some By 700 CE, when the Tar'tah rebelled against their Azdaq masters and established the first Tar'tah state, it is thought that the Azdaqs had split in two, having established a southern state around Kopra; the north came to be controlled by the Tar'tah and the south by what is historiographically known as the Third Azdaq Empire. The ancient Tar'tah imposed their language on their subjects and used their masters' chariots and horse power to establish control over the Thuvin valley, and are believed to have fought many wars with the tribes to the west and with the Azdaqs to the south. They had a lucrative trade across the Furānha (Feran) Mountains with the Inceans, and grew quite powerful. Records of the Tar'tah exist from both the Inceans and the Angleans, who first sent an envoy to the Tar'tah in 900 CE, and found their capital - Edyō - to be wealthy and powerful. In 1140, the Tar'tah took Kopra from the faltering Azdaqs, and reached their largest extent, pushing into Indor and modern-day Siowak. However, they soon fractured into several states, each claiming the title of ''Tar'tah Namisi. ''The Capulusians, initially with the support of the legendary Ulam-Azdaq king Duc Drac, took Kopra, the Kharpins took Indor, and even the north Thuvin Valley broke into a number of small states. This period would last until 1400, when the Sednyanese first began to look past the Feran Mountains. '''Prydain Era' King Alexander II of Sednyana became the first Sednyanese leader to intervene in Tara in 1393, when he made a deal with a lesser Tar'tah lord, Ieyaga Manāgdha of Tyaneh, for Sednyana's support in his war with the more powerful Dukirid kings of the south in exchange for his vassalage. Manāgdha was successful, and soon united all of the region, declaring himself Tar'tah Namisi, ''but falling under Sednyanese influence. He agreed to marry a Sednyanese princess, Alexander's cousin Lysanne, with whom he had a son, Jepas. However, upon Ieyaga's death in 1409, the new ambitious Sednyanese king, Alexander III, sent a military escort to force the young Jepas Manāgdha to accede the title of ''Tar'tah Namisi ''to Alexander, and accept for himself the title of Duke of Tara. When the fourteen-year-old Jepas refused, he was executed, and a Sednyanese royal family - the House Prydain, previously dukes of Fera - was imported to rule from Taratiana as Duke of Tara. The first Prydain Duke of Tara, Jon Prydain, second son of the Lord of Fera, Richard Prydain, forcibly married Jepas's younger sister, Tadiya, only twelve at the time. Once she turned fifteen, she bore him a son, named James and called ''Jammu. Jon Prydain continue to rule on behalf of King Alexander until 1430, when Alexander was killed in Dhemarqua. Jon remained loyal to the new King, Richard, but among his subjects many wanted an independent Tara; one of Ieyaga Manāgdha's generals, Goktim Nray, had Jon Prydain captured and declared himself King of All Tara. Jammu, at this point seventeen, fled to Sednyana, and began raising support. He allied himself with Sednyanese general Elias Therin, who - after securing peace in the South and his own rule over Sednyana as Regent for the young emperor Richard - traveled back west with James in 1435 and helped him fight Nray's army. However, unknown to Therin, James had no plans to bow to Sednyana; once they had defeated Nray, James had his loyalist forces within Tara capture Therin and force him to accede Tarati independence. Therin was released, and in Sednyana attempted to claim that the treaty had been made under duress and therefore unenforceable, attempting to raise a new army to defeat James, but he had already lost a good amount of power in Sednyanopolis during his years' absence, and in 1436 he was ousted totally from power and eventually executed for treason (the treason being his surrender of Tara). The new leaders of Sednyana, however, became more concerned with Ziunia to the north, and left Jammu Prydain alone; in 1441, Sednyana legally gave up its claims to Tara. The Kingdom of Tara under the Prydains was more extensive then it had been since the Tar'tah Empire's height, controlling from the Aurçegal hills to Coper in the south. In 1475, Jammu's son Arin conquered Indor, and extended Tarati influence into the Great Forests of Udan and Siowak. The Kingdom of Tara was a bizarre, multicultural state, with mixed-race and bilingual kings using Sednyanese political practices ruling over a small elite of wealthy white Sednyanese in Taratiana and a vast expanse of land featuring many languages. Tar'tah remained the de facto ''main language of the state, even though the nobility often spoke English to one another, and many of Taratiana's wealthy had learned English during the Sednyanese period. An alliance with Sednyana in 1477 secured the Prydain's power, and allowed for a shared use of the port at Coper; but the Kingdom's rule began to waver with the collapse of Sednyana in 1500 followed by the loss of Indor to Eqota in 1504. While George Ross offered Tarati admission to the Federation of Sednyana as four states - Tartha, Cassoultan, Zemda, and Aurçegal - Tara refused. However, this left some discontent, as Sednyanese republican ideas became trendy amongst the Tarati elite. In 1542, a revolution spearheaded by Tar'tah-speaking elements of the bourgeoisie but supported by a major grassroots army, overthrew the Prydain government and established a Republic of Tara, modeled after Sednyana but Regions Culture and Society The people of Tara, while unified under the modern concept of a "Tarati" nation, can be divided in many ways. The most common is by first language - while the plurality are the native Tarati-speakers of Tartha in the northeast, the Dore of Indor, the Nagay, the Udthi, the Siowak, and many others have ethnolinguistic identities. The Tarati can also be divided based on historical origin. In Tartha and other urban centers, the ''Tar'tah Nezeti, the Induze, and the ''Battu ''all to some degree form separate groups, although they mix and intermingle significantly. The Tar'tah Nezeti are the supposed "ancient" inhabitants of the region, descended from the Tar'tah Empire and the earliest Tar'tah. In contrast, the Induze are the